Again, this is not how big business works. That's like saying there's plenty of business for everyone, we can all have a slice. It doesn't work this way.
While there may be a potential new market in various forms from immune disorders or simple genetic error, no business in their right mind would furnish existing customers with unlimited supplies of anything, or a product that is self sufficient for a lifetime because there will be new ones along shortly.
Take away the moral, and in our cases, personal element and think about it again. Big business isn't big because of morality and kind deeds. They are there because of a need for a product or service that they are able to enforce and undercut or supply where others can't.
Look at oil companies. You think if someone found a way to turn bath water into gasoline that they'd sell you that secret? That they'd 'cure' your need for gasoline when it meant basically an end to a gigantic part of their company?
i have 2 completely different takes on this: 1) we have come such a long and arduous way from no BS meters, no long acting insulin, no fast acting insulin, no DNA human insulin, no pumps or pens or Ketone sticks, no knowledge about carb-counting....it would seem that if they could put a man (or woman) on the moon, someone should be able to find a cure. Right???
OR
2) the medical industry makes so much money from all of the possible medicines which help to control D, that there is really no point in finding a cure. i feel very strongly about this as it is also a question that comes up so often with the hope of curing HIV and AIDS. tons of medicine, no cure in sight. (as of today, anyways)
i hope to look at the glass as half full, however, so i hope and pray that there will be a cure B4 i die. it sure would be nice to eat, eat, eat carbs and sugar. personally, i would start off with a cold ale and a slice of the best pizza in NYC, bagels and cream cheese, Challah bread w/ butter, Key Lime Pie, pasta pasta and more pasta....U get the point! LOL
You are making me hungry Daisy Mae. I tried the low carb bagels, they are just okay. What I want is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a whole grain bread with frito's. And for dessert, blueberry pie. In my dreams.
No, certainly the same person selling you the oil wouldn't sell you the secret of how to turn wagter into oil. Someone who isn't selling you anything yet would though.
God, it would just be so nice to forget about it all for a while. Being able to exercise with a bottle of water and nothing else.
I'd have so much more time.
It's so continuous that I can't imagine what that might even feel like now. I wonder if I'd notice the time given back or if it would just become normal really quickly?
i 100% agree. its not in the medical companies $$$ best interest to cure a disease. they profit from our ailments too much. look at HIV, Cancer...what has been cured in our lifetime? Polio, TB...
I don't buy that argument. A cure would be a goldmine as the current cures are more "repair jobs" but there will be an endless supply of new patients because the defects causing all kinds of diabetes are genetic.
YES. Visit www.Faustmanlab.org
They're using an old / safe / vacine called BCG. The vacine causes the body to release TNF. TNF targets and destroys the T-cells responsible for killing the pancreatic beta cells. In the absence of the T-cells the islet cells that produce insulin regenerate.
Phase two to start when funding is there so contribute if you can. Phase two to take 3-5 yrs.
The false accusations regarding the pharmas preventing a cure is not even close to correct. The hard working scientists in no way are prevented from doing their work to provide a cure.
This is a very complicated process and steps forward in the last 10 years have been amazing. We now can manufacture unlimited amounts of islet cells but have not yet figured how to make them control glucose levels. This will be the final step for a cure. Scientists all over the world are working on this.
And by the way, almost all of the scientists I have spoken with do not care about the financials gains they may make if they cure diabetes. They will be ready to move on to the next project as they are driven by scientific achievement not monetary gain.
Remember Best and Banting didn’t make any money when discovering insulin in 1922.
This is an interesting one, Jethro. I signed up for their list and offered myself up as a blood donor.
It's funny because I never did get my BCG when I was a kid. It was an optional thing back in England and I skipped it.
I imagine this testing is a more direct application of the BCG or type one diabetics would have started not being type ones when given the stuff back in the 80's, and to my knowledge that wasn't the case.
Sadly they didn't seem to understand that I was over in Washington (They are in Boston) and couldn't come in unless it was for the big stuff.
I offered to fedex samples, but again, with the person I was emailing with, there seemed to be no understanding that this was possible.
Imagine how many more test samples they'd have if it didn't require an in person clinic visitation to Boston. It's a real shame, because I have a feeling it was just a poorly trained staff member problem. She just kept on about how a local lab wouldn't be able to do the testing as though I was asking to have the samples tested here. I was offering to send a clinical sample, which happens all the time.
I don't mind them refusing of course, but it would be nice to have it refused for the right reason, and not a misunderstanding.
I might try again. Perhaps it'll get to a different person.
Were BCG vaccinations routine in England when you were a kid? I don't think they were ever routine here in the US. And that made me wonder what the incidence of T1 is in England vs. the US. Also, so far as I know, if BCG actually does work to calm the immune system, it still requires periodic shots, and I would suppose that it was a one-time thing in those countries that gave it. Innerstin' eh?
I was wondering the very same thing, Natalie. I cannot recall the age ranges that the BCG was given to, but I do recall they were a little higher than the typical onset ages of type 1. (Early teen years).
It was considered at the time to be a miraculous cure-all. My mother, being from a slightly austere family background of shunning conventional medicine, decided to not vaccinate me against anything. She wasn't anywhere near as severe with her methods as her parents, but she still had a built in fear of medicine.
This, I know is a theory for some causes of type one, but I'd love for them to have a test person such as myself who has a completely blank canvas like this. I think I may be fairly unusual for that reason.
Well, anything that has a bacterial etiology is pretty much curable. But that's because antibiotics were discovered, and that made those diseases curable (but maybe not forever, because of antibiotic resistance). Viral and genetic diseases are a whole nother order of magnitude more difficult -- maybe many orders of magnitude. Viruses are MUCH harder to control if the person already has the diseases because they insinuate themselves into the very DNA of the cell, and it's hard to get the virus out, so the best they can do with viral diseases is to either let it run its course, or use drugs to suppress the virus. That's why vaccination is so important!
As far as genetic diseases, whether triggered (like T1 AND T2) or inevitable (like cystic fibrosis), it's necessary to understand the workings of the genes involved. That's fairly easy when the diseases is monogenic, like CF or Tay-Sachs disease, but extremely hard when the disease is polygenic, as both T1 and T2 seem to be. So, of course they're going to be hard to cure, and Big Pharma is not even involved all that much at this point. LOTS of tax dollars and public donations go to the search for cures for viral and genetic diseases, and some day, researchers in some University WILL find cures. How those cures get disseminated to the people who need them is another story. Personally, I'm not holding my breath that it will come in my lifetime, but never is a long time, and if not for our children, then for our grandchildren, etc. :-)
Under current dogma and heartfelt lost ideas, I do not see a cure soon.
While viruses and genes are factors; they are not whole story.
I still believe and see scientific data that still points at the old hunter gatherer gene digestion system (ancient and hardly modified over thousands of years )and its proclivity for survival tactics rather than preventing glucose oversuppy to body and this 24/7 age of endless foods, refined foods, improved grains and reduced physical exercise/labour as being far more important factors.
I believe diabetes is a virus response. It may be as simple as a common cold, we all get it and in some cases it turns on the autoimmune system and boom it attacks the beta cells. So yes there will be a cure in that people will not get type 1. But no, people with type 1 will have it and insulin is all we can do about it. Current science suggests that the virus that turns on the beta killing reaction may exist as few as a few days,m or as long as 12 years. it is the interruption of the immune system that will be solved, not some magic cure. Ask any type 1 parent, this will feel like a cure.
